The new relationship between sales and marketing: it’s harder for the sales folks

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The new relationship between sales and marketing: it’s harder for the sales folks

by: Sharon Drew Morgen

Historically, sellers have been the one touching the buyer as marketers
developed the brand awareness and hopefully brought buyers in – to be aware of
the brand and trust it (or have some sort of mental relationship with it).

Marketing has never been hands-on the way that sellers were when they made
cold calls or went to client sites to make presentations. Sellers worked more
with the buyer; marketers worked more with the solution, the brand, and the
general demograph of possible buyers.

THE JOB OF MARKETING HAS CHANGED – BUT TO WHAT?
We know that our historic sales/marketing jobs have shifted since the
capabilities of technology are so ubiquitous. But what, exactly, has it changed
to?

Believe it or not, this new relationship is making the seller’s job more
difficult, and decidedly far less successful. With only assumptions to use when
digital footprints are monitored as a prospect peruses the site (or whatever
they’re following), they truly have no idea who is a prospect, and they
absolutely have no idea how to create/develop trust over time. Not to mention
they are leaving the sales folks to pick up the pieces too far into the buying
decision cycle.

Here is a case in point. I recently had to download a trial copy of a
software program I had purchased a couple of years ago: I suddently needed text
in a program I developed and there was no other way to retrieve it but to
download the originating software. But note: every day people who have not
previously purchased software take trials with no thought to actually purchasing
it.

THE STALKING VENDOR
From the moment — the very moment — that I downloaded the program, I began to
get emails. Emails introducing me to additional capability that I could get if I
purchased the entire program. Deals if I purchased NOW rather than waiting for
the trial period to be over. Then I began getting emails from a sales rep, in a
perky email voice, telling me to call him so he could explain all of the
features of the solution. THEN I started getting a countdown to the days I have
left on my trial, with deals to purchase at a great price. And THEN I got a call
– ON MY PRIVATE NUMBER - that went like this:

“Hi. Sharon (and anyone who knows me knows NOT to call me Sharon)?? I’m Dan,
your sales rep at X??? Hey. How ya doin?” And this is a direct quote.

After I told him I was busy and hung up (I didn’t even want to discuss how he
got the phone number that only friends and family use), he began emailing me to
pick up the conversation. And then he kept calling, without leaving messages.

This is all he has time to do? What sort of time does he spend following REAL
buyers? And, if he follows them the way he’s following me, they are certain to
find a different vendor for the annoyance factor alone. I actually feel stalked.

I’M NOT A BUYER. HOW CAN MARKETING TELL?
I’m not a buyer. This guy has me on his list of prospects – probably as a hot
prospect since on his books I register as ‘interested.’ Marketing put up the
trial and tracked me, then sent my name over to Dan. Now Dan is wasting his time
following me up. Maybe even telling his boss he’s going to close me in 3 weeks.

How many ‘me’s’ are there, wasting Dan’s time? Before, sellers would get lead
lists, or go networking, or do their research to discover potentially interested
prospects. Now, they sit and wait for marketing to hand them ‘leads.’ And
through all of this, only 50% of sellers are meeting their quotas. I suspect
this is the reason why: they are wasting their time on unqualified leads that
marketing is sending them. Not to mention the stalking feeling I got would have
turned me off even if I were a real buyer.

Here are the problems: 1. Marketing has no means to know the difference
between a good prospect and a bad one. 2. Marketing is making up in quantity
what they are lacking in quality – and wasting a seller’s time in the process.
3. Marketing assumes that there are certain touch-points that determine a
qualified buyer. But they are wrong: they are basing their assumption on
potential need, not on propensity to buy. And they have no – no – idea the
criteria buyers need to meet to decide to buy.

Yes. There is a way to enter the buying decision journey without stalking,
without assuming need, without even discussing product.

Even if the marketing group hands over quantity rather than quality, there is
a way to help buyers discover how to navigate through ALL of their decisions: it
starts from the behind-the-scenes issues the person or team must navigate
through…that off-line,personal, private stuff that goes on well before a
solution is sought…and walks through the change management/buy-in cycle that’s a
pre-cursor to a solution selection.

Sales doesn’t handle this. Hopefully, I’m helping this problem correct itself
by placing Buying Facilitation™ into playbooks for a few sales enablement
companies. But there is certainly a way to learn it for yourselves without
having to purchase sales enablement software to use it.

Or consider purchasing
the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying
Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions.
These books were written to be read together, as they offer the full complement
of concepts to help you learn and understand Buying Facilitation® - the new
skill set that gives you the ability to lead buyers through their buying
decisions.